Garbage Revisited, Again

March 04, 1991

A long article in a recent issue of The New York Times is of considerable interest to lovers of garbage and the question of what to do with it. And it should be of particular interest to people in Hampton, who objected loudly to plans to implement a program that would have required residents to pay for garbage disposal based on the amount of trash they throw away. Those plans were discarded because of citizen anger, but here's what the article in the Times says:

"Given proper financial incentives, experts argue, households would voluntarily reduce the tonnage of non-hazardous waste left by the curb. ... The key to a rational garbage policy is to ensure that the prices people are charged for disposal services reflect the true social costs of getting rid of the stuff."

Now, of course, most people have no idea how much of their tax dollar is devoted to garbage disposal, nor is there any visible financial incentive for people to reduce their refuse. Localities handle garbage disposal differently, some contracting to private haulers who charge individual households for pickup. But in cities such as Hampton, garbage disposal is paid for out of general revenue, collected primarily through real estate and personal property taxes. A person who throws away a lot of trash pays no more for the service than a person who recycles and takes other steps to reduce his garbage. This makes as much sense as a person who uses a lot of electricity having the same bill as a person who uses very little. In other words, it doesn't make sense.

Seattle uses a "pay as you throw" plan, and in the first year that fees were charged on a per-container basis, recycling rose from 24 percent to 36 percent. Consider those figures. Virginia localities are struggling to meet a state mandate to recycle 25 percent of their garbage by 1995, and a struggle it is. Seattle, already near that impressive figure, increased it simply by letting people dispose or recyclable materials free and charging per container for the rest.

It's understandable that people would be suspicious of such a dramatic change in the way they pay for garbage disposal. It's so easy now. Put it in a rolling bin, and the stuff just disappears. We are spoiled.

Those days, however, are coming to an end. The cost of garbage disposal is going up. So why not take advantage of a bad situation? Simply pass the increased cost directly to the person using the service. There is no better way to encourage recycling.